True Calling
by Bamboofoxfire Productions
Summary: [slight re-write for parts of the first HTTYD movie] Astrid spots Hiccup and Toothless in their near-disastrous "first flight", and she's determined to bring to light exactly how Hiccup REALLY managed to become the best student in dragon training against everyone's expectations.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I have no problems with how the first HTTYD film played out, but I like to play with "What If It Had Gone Differently" scenarios and have my own ideas to how I would have written some parts differently so here's that. This is starting from the scene titled Test Drive(Hiccup and Toothless's first flight). Everything before it is exactly the same as the movie. Enjoy~

* * *

 **True Calling  
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction  
**

* * *

Astrid knew something was up. There was no way it wasn't. Hiccup, as she had put it to words the night before, was acting weird _er_ than usual, as if his sudden _prowess_ with handling dragons wasn't indication enough. Hiccup and "prowess" were not two concepts that belonged in the same sentence, unless it was describing his lack thereof.

Everyone on Berk and even some _other_ nearby settlements belonging to allied tribes know that he is a walking disaster. An accident waiting to happen, or the accident itself, depending on who was asked about it. He had no tact in anything, and everything he tried to make better was instead screwed up ten times worse. The last time the dragons had raided their home, he had pretty much solely been responsible for the dragons making off with an entire flock of sheep, stores of fish, and for one of the big fire beacons to fall and burn their dock into the sea, and no one could be more disappointed than their chief and Hiccup's dad, Stoick the Vast.

Some days Astrid actually felt a twinge of pity for the boy. It was undoubtedly hard being the village laughing stock and increasingly useless to fulfill the needs of the village the same as everyone else, but there came a time when exasperation and annoyance overrode sympathy or pity, and Astrid was well past that point when the laughing stock of Berk, who didn't even take their war against the dragons _seriously_ , was putting _her_ to shame.

 _She_ took her future as a dragon slayer seriously. _She_ worked her butt off every day to be _the_ best among her generation's Vikings. _She_ toiled and trained and took no disrespect from anyone. _She_ does all she can to stay fit and prepared both mentally and physically for whatever comes her way.

Hiccup does none of those things. He bumbles and ruins every task he tries to undertake, but _somehow_ he's showing her up as if _she's_ the fool in dragon training.

Its not even that she's being bested that irritates her, its by _whom_. She could see Snotlout possibly doing better than her, assuming he'd stop flirting every time they were in class. The twins were obnoxious and purely insane but crafty, even if only selectively so. Fishlegs wasn't exactly full of bravery and battle skills, but he knew more about the dragons than anyone else their age, and knowledge was useful. At the very least, all of them were _partially_ competent.

But of all the people to be shown up by, it had to be _Hiccup_ , and that was what really got under her skin. She's started to almost wonder if it even really _is_ Hiccup and not really Loki disguised in his place, come to make them all look stupid(and maybe the real Hiccup was even watching and laughing from somewhere just out of sight), but if that were true, the God of Mischief was a damn good Hiccup impersonator. It seemed like a completely ludicrous notion, but so was the idea that Hiccup actually had the stones to fight and defeat dragons and pull tricks to accomplish it that no one else had _EVER_ seen before.

Once could have been a fluke, but his victories were clearly no accident, and when both her head and gut were in agreement, something was _definitely_ wrong. Finding him skulking with purpose through the woods the other day - while she had been deliberately misplacing her aggression on some defenseless trees with several hard throws of her axe - with another one of his strange crafts in-hand had only further driven her suspicions.

He was up to something and she was going to find out exactly _what_ it was, which was how she found herself trudging through the woods trying to pick up a trail of where he was running away to every day after class. She knew he was going _somewhere_ specific, maybe even meeting with some _one_ for some kind of secret training or something, so all she would need to do is find out the _where._ Once she had that part figured out, then she could find out the _what_ and the _how_.

She muttered some curses about the fumbling idiot, eyes scouring the ground and low branches for some sign of a path or indicator for where he might be, when a shadow darted overhead with a loud _whoosh_ of air, making her startle. She barely glanced up in time to see a tail quickly disappear over the top of the trees. The tail of a _dragon_.

It wasn't the twin tails of a Zippleback, or the short stub of a Gronkle, too large to be a Terrible Terror, and it wasn't long and narrow enough at the end to be a Natter. That only left a Monstrous Nightmare, and those were _big_ trouble. What was one doing on the island in broad daylight? Most of the dragons only came to Berk at night, and only to raid, flying to somewhere beyond the sea fog known as Helheim's Gate at all other times, which meant its presence spelled trouble, and she needed to figure out where it was headed and possibly warn the villagers.

She gave chase through the woods, leaping logs and ducking under branches. It looked like it was headed out to sea, but she had to be sure, hoping that it was merely passing over and otherwise leaving. She was winded by the time she reached the open cliff, squinting and turning to look, but didn't see a dragon anywhere at first. A glance towards the village and strained ears told her that at least there was no dragon attack.

She lingered for a while, quieting even her breathing and standing completely still for a while to simply watch and listen for any indication of the beast, but she saw and heard nothing for several minutes and finally shook her head. It must have simply been passing through, nothing to worry over. Hiccup, however, was another matter, so she started to turn back for the trees.

Started to, but a strange noise made her stop mid-step and glance back out to see. The noise was _definitely_ a dragon, but she pulled a blank when trying to match it to any of the dragons she knew, though she considered distance and the high winds could skew the noise and lead her to confusion. Squinting into the distance, she finally caught a glance of something diving from the clouds that hung low around the island.

It was not like _any_ dragon she had ever seen. Jet black with long wings and fins at the end of its tail, as far as she could tell, and she could swear of seeing two heads, but short ones, unlike a Zippleback, and with one on top of the other rather than side-by-side. Plus, it was small, but it looked streamlined.

It dipped close to the sea, tilting so that one of its wing tips skimmed the surface of the waves, and was growing further away as it ducked between the legs of a tall, roofed sea stack, where gulls chattered from the clefts above in raucous complaint.

If this dragon was unknown, that meant that it was potentially very dangerous, and she needed to see if it was going to leave or stay. The _last_ thing they needed was a dragon living directly on their island, as if hoards of them flying halfway across the sea to steal their food wasn't bad enough! She ran along the top of the cliffs to follow it, keeping her eyes on where it was headed as she ran.

Strangely enough, its flight was a lot more clumsy than she expected from the monster. It picked up speed and tried to bank to one side, then promptly ran itself straight into a sea stack, briefly stunning it into a hover before shaking it off and continuing on, only to run into a _second_ sea stack straight afterwards, pulling back the second before impact.

Astrid couldn't help wondering if maybe the dragon could be sick or perhaps injured. She didn't know dragons to fly much near the island in the day time, but those that were spotted were much more graceful about it, even if she hated to think of the fire-breathing monsters as such.

Still, the dragon was action undeniably strange. Ironic, considering she was out here because Hiccup had been acting strange as well. A sick or strange-acting dragon was unpredictable, however, and she was all the more glad she had come out today, because the beast could very quickly become a danger to the lives of her fellow Berkians.

The beast turned its way upward now instead, beating its wings hard to gain altitude with purpose, where there was nothing to run into, until it was heading straight up in a vertical climb, letting out an off-hand roar as it ascended.

What made Astrid pause though wasn't the dragonic howl. It was something else that she could almost _swear_ she recognized. When she listened harder, straining her ears, she knew this time, she heard a very distinctive, excited sound " _y-e-s!_ " that was far _too_ familiar for her liking, but she had yet to connect the dots.

How could a dragon be speaking in a human tongue? What kind of inane-?

Her moment of internal distraction was disrupted by an even clearer, frantically alarmed _"STOP!"_ , and a second later she saw the black dragon falling from the sky, but what caught her attention was that there was _something else_ falling from just above it. Her first conclusive jump as that there had been another dragon up there, maybe that even attacked the first dragon, but it was too small to have done much damage to the larger black reptile, which was spiraling down and screeching in absolute _terror,_ flailing helplessly to right itself.

She squinted hard and watched the smaller thing that sounded as if it was _speaking,_ though the words were hard to discern, and twisting in the air as it fell, which she noted was green and brown and shaped like-

"Hiccup!"

No - no that was _impossible -_ but she was watching it all and was making out his unmistakable, lanky features and could _clearly_ hear that nasally voice of his, filled with full knowledge and panic that he was _falling_ towards imminent _death_.

She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands as the black dragon spiraled in a circle, its tail whipping around and smacking him in the face to send him spinning through the sky, and didn't even realize she herself had stopped breathing in those moments as she watched both dragon and boy falling earthbound, and she might have spared more attention to the fact that, for some reason, the dragon wasn't correcting itself to fly if not for the fact that she was fixated on watching Hiccup with horror in her eyes, fully expecting to see him splatter against the rocks so that there would be little left of him afterwards.

She saw him groping for the dragon's back as the beast angled from spinning uselessly on its side to having its nose down towards the quickly approaching land and sea, and then he managed to grab something on its shoulders - she couldn't tell exactly what - and pull himself over to straddle the dragon's neck. The large beast fell into a sharp spin with its wings tucked in close until it had steadied into a straight dive, coming down way too fast, and Astrid thought for _sure_ they would end up crashing through the trees.

The dragon snapped its wings open though, and Astrid could hear it even from a distance as they descended. Even that wasn't enough to slow them down before they disappeared into the mist, where she was almost certain they must have hit the maze of sea stacks concealed by the thick clouds of white. _No way_ they had made it out.

She waited for what felt like hours, staring with wide eyes and praying - though she was sure it was in vain - to see some sign of survival. For a long time, there was just silence and crashing waves, and then finally, _finally_ , a winged black shape flew out the other side, lifting itself skyward with a few flutters of its deft wings.

And then, to finally settle her fears, she heard Hiccup, _cheering_ in glee and victory.

Admittedly, Astrid had to stop and just collect herself for a good several minutes, doubting everything she just saw.

Hiccup _riding_ on the back of a dragon. Now she had seen everything. Literally, _EVERYTHING_.

She watched as, seemingly unaware, Hiccup and the dragon flew away around the back of the island, probably to land somewhere after that _completely crazy_ stunt. She considered chasing after them and confronting Hiccup about exactly _what_ he was doing, how he could even _think_ to be on the back of a dragon, but then thought better of it. It didn't _appear_ that the dragon was in any great rush to get him off and eat him, which was strange in and of itself, so she didn't think he was in any _immediate_ danger.

This was something she couldn't keep secret though.

Someone had to know.

 _Stoick,_ especially, had to know. She couldn't give Hiccup the chance to explain it away, and he undoubtedly would at least try, so the best way to make sure he couldn't was to ambush him with the announcement that she and Stoick _knew_ what he was doing. Something like this, especially with Hiccup involved, could only lead to worse trouble for _everyone_ around him.

It was with that in mind she turned and sprinted back to the village, before Hiccup would even have the chance to return. He was in for a nasty surprise when he finally _did_ return.


	2. Chapter 2

**True Calling  
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction  
**

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Hiccup couldn't exactly claim the day hadn't been... er... _eventful_ , but he was deeply glad it was over. He hadn't exactly expected there would be no incidents whatsoever, but that last accidental fall had been a little too perilous for comfort. He could still clearly envision what very well _could_ have happened and the mental images made him shudder violently.

He really needed to figure out a better clasp for staying attached to Toothless's saddle. Maybe a hook that was a little more closed off, but he didn't want to deal with having it get bent so that he couldn't detach himself from it either. The last time that had happened, he'd had to go to the workshop for a tool to pry it off, and Astrid had almost caught him with the Night Fury, which was almost as disastrous as their earlier tumble through the sky. Not _quite_ as bad, but pretty close to it.

He sighed and dragged a hand down his face tiredly, which he regretted instantly, his skin still tender from flying through Toothless's celebratory blast of fire. The tips of his hair were singed and he had every intention of hacking the ends off once he got home. At least, maybe he would in the morning, but he was utterly _exhausted_ now. Chances were he might simply crash and sleep the second he found his bed. All of his limbs ached, his legs felt heavy as anvils, and he had only recently come down off of the spike of adrenaline the fall had given him. Yeah, sleep sounded good.

He dragged his tired feet to the steps of his house, pushed the door open with protesting arms, and stretched to the sky with a deep yawn. When his name was called in a gruff, addressing voice, he jumped, almost stumbling backwards through the open door.

"Oh, D-Dad! You're back!" he greeted with a stutter of nervous surprise, smiling sheepishly. "S-so... how, um... how did the search go?" An unhappy grunt told him everything he needed to know.

"Son, we need to talk."

"Uhhh, we do?" Hiccup drawled, shifting uncomfortably.

"Yes, we do." _That_ voice was definitely _not_ his father, and only now was he noticing Astrid, who stepped forward and crossed her arms, glaring at him. Something in those smoldering eyes inspired a sinking feeling, and not the usual kind of sinking feeling. He glanced between Stoick and Astrid.

"Dad, what is Astrid doing here?"

The Viking Chieftain turned his eyes momentarily to the blond girl, pursing his lips. "She hasn't told me yet, actually. She thought it would be better to say it once you arrived, but it sounds as though its something important. Concerning your surprising exploits in dragon training."

"Oh?" Hiccup's mind immediately jumped to Toothless, but he pushed the thought away. No, it couldn't possibly be that. He'd been so careful to avoid going anywhere he might have been seen, which was considerably easy when he had grown up on Berk his whole life and everyone knew everyone else's habits and schedules. "A-about what?"

"I saw you out there today," Astrid accused.

"Saw? Saw me where? Is this about the Natter, or...?"

"I'm not talking about in dragon training," Astrid hissed, narrowing her eyes.

Hiccup silently prickled in alarm. _I saw you out there_. Suddenly he was fearing he may not have been as careful as he'd thought. His eyes darted between her and Stoick, though his father seemed entirely confused.

"I saw him earlier today out over the sea. Suddenly it all makes sense how you've been pulling all those weird moves in the arena." She turned toward Stoick, who was watching her and trying to figure out exactly what she was talking about as she pointed an accusing finger in Hiccup's direction. "He's been sneaking off on his own after classes, and today, I saw him on the back of a dragon, _flying_ over the ocean. It even sounded like he and it were having a good old fun time. _That's_ how he's suddenly got so good. He's out there doing... _Gods only know_ what with a dragon as if its some common pet while no one is looking!"

The room suddenly felt too hot and Hiccup pursed his lips as she turned and gave him a nasty, triumphant smirk, crossing her arms over her chest.

Stoick was as still as a statue, not moving - Hel, maybe not even _breathing_ \- for the longest time. Hiccup could only imagine the storm building inside the stout man, ready to be unleashed like lightning strikes from Thor himself.

"Uh-... um, Dad, there's a very... _reasonable_ explanation... for... this..." he trailed off as what erupted was not rage and shouting, but _laughter._

Stoick the Vast was _buckled over_ , holding his stomach, laughing so hysterically there were tears forming in the corner of his eyes. Astrid did a double-take, jaw falling open.

There were several minutes where Stoick simply could not control his laughter at all, and when Astrid tried to talk to him and insist she was _very serious_ about this, he half-shooed her away so that he could regain his composure.

"Are you absolutely sure we're talking about the same Hiccup?" he chortled mirthfully. " _My_ son? And riding on the back of a dragon, having fun with it even! Ha! I've never heard such a ridiculous thing before!"

"No, _Chief_ , I really saw-"

Stoick held up a hand to stop her, chuckling in another, milder fit of laughter. Hiccup couldn't help but laugh a little as well, though more with relief, and perhaps just a _touch_ of amusement.

"Can you believe this girl?" Stoick mused, addressing Hiccup more than Astrid herself. "Maybe we should retitle her from _Berk's best dragon fighting youth_ to _Berk's best comedian_." He smiled at Astrid, clearly not even sparing the very thought that what she was saying might be true. "That was a good one. You almost had me going there for a moment."

Hiccup laughed along with him, idly swinging his arms and trying not to look guilty. "Yeah, that... that was definitely a good one, Astrid. Who knew you had a funny bone in you."

She entirely ignored him, still determined to convince Stoick that what she said was true.

"Chief, I'm not trying to be funny! Its true! I know what I saw! Hiccup is keeping secrets. How else do you explain him suddenly becoming so... _good_ at dragon fighting?!"

"Hm... well..." Stoick appeared to give that a little more thought. "Some are just late bloomers I suppose."

"Um, Dad, I think I might be able to shed a little light on this... dragon riding thing that Astrid insists she saw," Hiccup volunteered, trying not to cringe under the dirty look she gave him. Clearly she knew that this was not going to be spoken in her favor.

"Oh?"

"Astrid is clearly _jealous_ that someone other than her is the best at dragon training. Only natural considering she used to be the best and now suddenly she isn't." The glare she was giving him darkened and promised future pain. Very _near_ future pain. "Of course second best is still brag worthy."

They both knew he was lying, but _Stoick_ didn't and that was what was most important. He didn't really get any pleasure from slandering her in that way, but no way was he going to admit to it being true and endanger Toothless's life for Astrid's reputation.

"I'm not jealous!" She snapped, and Hiccup held his hands up in placation.

"...ooor maybe the God of Pranks decided to play a little joke," he offered up alternatively, "or maybe she got some bad food and hallucinated the entire thing, like that time Snotlout ate a wild mushroom when we were seven and thought he could suddenly understand sheep and that they were all secretly plotting to take over the village."

Stoick looked as though he considered those as viable explanations and nodded his head with a slight shrug. "Seems a lot more likely if you ask me."

"I didn't hallucinate _anything_!" Astrid screamed in frustration.

"Alright, Astrid, you've had your laugh. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to have some private time to speak to my son," Stoick dismissed.

Astrid muffled a frustrated yell behind closed lips and turned to storm out. Hiccup danced to the side to let her pass, but it didn't spare him from an index finger jabbed into his collarbone.

" _This. **Isn't**. Over._ "

Hiccup only held his hands up again, placating, and looked at his father out of the corner of his eye, chuckling nervously and thumbing over his shoulder. "Yeah... I think its safe to say she's just a little... _upset_ that I stole some of her spotlight in the arena," he offered up, just in case Stoick had any doubts. Apparently he didn't, but why would he?

"So, about your performance in the dragon fighting pit..."

"Oh, well... um... to be honest, I'd rather not talk about it right now," Hiccup offered up sincerely, yawning and stretching his arms. "I'm _really_ tired and need to save up my energy for tomorrow."

"Oh. Yes, big day," Stoick agreed, though with an audible note of disappointment.

"So I'm gonna just... go up to my room, and go to bed."

"Probably for the best," Stoick nodded as Hiccup started to sidestep towards the stairs.

"Okay, well... good night then," Hiccup said, before turning fully and disappearing up to his room.

"Good night."

Hiccup breathed out a stressed sigh as he reached his bedroom. That could have ended _so much worse_. If Astrid really saw him though - and he had no reason to doubt she had now - he was going to have to be a _lot_ more careful.

He also needed to figure out what to do about her knowing, because he couldn't keep the secret forever, but he could try to keep it a little longer.

Glancing at his table littered in drawings, he decided a good place to start with trying to keep it for as long as possible, at least until the right time to reveal it, would be to hide his sketches of the Night Fury. After that, he needed to come up with a plan.


	3. Chapter 3

**True Calling  
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction  
**

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Astrid had been absolutely livid when she left Stoick's house after Hiccup utterly _humiliated_ her in front of Berk's Chief, and she was very much determined to prove what she saw, but the very **_last_** straw came when he had the nerve to show her up in the Ring _again_ , in front of everyone _including_ Stoick.

She didn't even know how he did it! One moment she was ducked behind a wood wall, stalking the Gronkle they had as their opponent, and the next, it was laying on the ground incapacitated. She had only taken her eyes off of the dragon and Hiccup for a _second_ as she'd been readying herself to attack and take it down before _he_ could, and she'd missed it!

Apparently so had everyone else that was watching as they cheered and celebrated his victory, and their village elder, Gothi, decided that Hiccup - _Hiccup_ the _Useless_ \- would be the one to fight and kill the Monstrous Nightmare in front of the entire village, as part of their "graduation ceremony".

Oh, Hiccup was going to _severely_ get what was coming, and she _was_ going to prove that he was conspiring somehow to get as good as he did all of a sudden, and she made sure he _knew_ it by the glare she gave him, just before Hiccup was hoisted up onto Fishleg's shoulders and paraded through town by the excited villagers.

She needed to get someone on her side that would actually believe her, and she knew just how to do it, but first she needed to know _exactly_ where Hiccup was going. Hiccup was more careful this time, checking over his shoulder regularly, but not enough to evade her. She knew how to track just as well as she knew how to fight. Hiccup was sly and cautious, she'd give him that much credit, but he wasn't as skilled as she was.

Where she ended up after following him was an alcove, or at least right above it, ducking into the bushes. Hiccup was still checking over his shoulder, but he didn't know _exactly_ where to look, so he didn't spot her. When he deemed that he hadn't been followed, or at least thought he wasn't, he gave a proper walk around a small lake within the alcove, towards the mouth of a cave formed by tree roots through the rock walls.

"Toothless?"

Astrid waited, squinting into the cave. At first there was nothing, and then a shape that melted out of the shadows of the small cave, a beast she had never seen before; sleek, winged, and black as night.

 _Black as night._

"Nightfury!" she hissed under her breath, eyes widening in realization. This wasn't just _any_ dragon. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. "So he was telling the truth that morning after all."

She held her breath as the dragon prowled up to him, tame as a lamb, but undeniably still menacing. What was most dumbfounding was how Hiccup didn't seem scared at _all_. This was a dragon that even _she_ would undoubtedly be terrified of to face off against, but Hiccup showed not even the slightest amount of fear, even gave it a light pat on the head as he walked to the beast's side and climbed onto its back, and that irked her even more than before.

"We're going for a little ride, bud. We need to figure some things out."

She thought she heard a rumble, but it was hard to be sure at such a distance, before the Nightfury spread its wings and took off into the sky. She instinctively ducked, in case she might be spotted, but they disappeared without indicating they saw her at all or even knew she was there. Even if no one believed her, now she knew _for sure_ she hadn't just imagined anything, and if they'd gone, then that gave her some time to try and see if she could find some proof to show someone else, at least enough to convince them to come with her and see it for themselves.

She found it in the form of shed black scales scattered about the alcove, picking up a good handful of them and immediately sprinting back for Berk.

Even if no one else would listen to her, she knew she could get Fishlegs roped into this. He was fanatical about dragons, and the very _thought_ of discovering anything new about a Nightfury would surely entice him.

Fishleg's was skeptical, but not outright dismissive when she presented him with the black scales.

"And you're _sure_ these came off of a Nightfury? Because y'know, Monstrous Nightmares sometimes have stripes of black scales too."

"Fishlegs, _where_ would I get scales off of a Monstrous Nightmare?"

"Where would you get scales off of a Nightfury?" he countered. He had a good point, but she had a better one.

"From the place where it _lives_."

Fishlegs perked in surprise, gasping under his breath, "Astrid, you know where the Nest is?"

"No," she told him carefully. "But I know where the Nightfury's nest is. Its living alone in a cave, on _our_ island. There are more scales there."

Fishlegs chuckled. "Well... no one's ever actually _seen_ a Nightfury, so..."

"I have. In fact, I saw it just today after training, just past Raven Point..."

Fishlegs paused, looking thoughtful. "Isn't that the place where Hiccup said a Nightfury he shot down fell?"

" _Exactly_ ," Astrid told him.

Fishlegs hummed speculatively. "I dunno, Astrid..."

She shrugged, polishing her fingernails on the front of her shirt. "Well, if there turns out to be no Nightfury, then we'll just go there and you have nothing to lose if we don't see it, but if it turns out that it _is_ there, then you'll have been one of the first people ever to have seen one..."

She could see the sudden spark of conflict in his eyes, the larger boy biting his lip and making a noise that sounded somewhere between a hum of thought and distress, the idea too much for him to resist. "Okay! Count me in! If you really think that there's a Nightfury there, I want to see it!" Pausing, he added, "You know... before everyone wants to put its head on a stick or something."

"You're going after a Nightfury?" Astrid almost wanted to groan when Tuffnut popped out of seemingly nowhere, followed close by his sister. "No one's ever seen one. How do you expect to?"

"Weren't either of you muttonheads listening?" Snotlout scoffed. "She said she knows where it _lives!_ "

"So how do you know its a Nightfury?" Ruffnut added as she and her brother came to stand on either side, eyeing her in scrutiny.

"Did it _tell_ you it was a Nightfury?" Tuffnut continued, before pausing and glancing at his sister. "Wait, can Nightfury's talk?" Ruff merely shrugged in response.

Astrid scoffed disgust and crossed her arms, cocking a brow. "Do _you_ all want to come to?"

"I dunno... sounds just like the kind of thing someone would make up because they're _jealous_ they aren't the number one dragon fighter anymore."

Astrid had half a mind to throw Tuffnut down a ditch and bury him alive. "Why would I make up something like that?" And why did everything think she _needed_ to make something up to keep credibility. She was _better_ than Hiccup and she didn't need to prove it to know!

"Maybe to get rid of the competition, somewhere deep in the woods where no one would see a thing."

Snotlout laughed aloud. "Oh, _puh-lease_ , Astrid would never do something like that out of jealousy." He laughed for a good many seconds more before stopping and giving her a wary look. "You'd never do that, right?"

"I'm considering it," Astrid muttered. And she was, too, if just for a second. "If you idiots don't want to come, that's fine by me. Unless of course you want to become famous for seeing a legendary Nightfury before anyone else."

 _And then maybe Stoick will realize I'm NOT going crazy... or making up stories out of "jealousy"!_

"Alright, fine," Snotlout was the first to agree, giving her a lewd wink. "It's a date."

She paused, only long enough to return, "If I make up my mind on burying the competition where no one will find them, you'll be the first to go." Somehow she got the impression that just turned the flirtatious meathead on even more.

Trekking through the woods with the twins and Snotlout was hardly tolerable, and Fishlegs was only marginally better, but she put up with it. This was all for the sake of proving how much of a _cheater_ Hiccup really was. As far as she was concerned, it _was_ cheating. Obviously Hiccup was pulling some kind of tricks to get the results he wanted. If it had merely been that he had been working his butt off honestly and getting results, maybe she would have been less pissed off about it.

It wasn't just that he was going off and training on how to fight with someone though, which was what she had first assumed. They were learning to fight dragons because all of their _lives_ depended on it. Dragons were the enemy: always were, always will be. Hiccup was being more than just a cheater. He was _betraying_ them. This was war, and he was conspiring with the _other side_. What could he possibly even be thinking? Maybe nothing at all, and _that's_ the problem.

What Hiccup is doing is _bound_ to carry consequences for them all. This is Hiccup they're talking about after all, and Hiccup is a walking disaster who makes everything ten times worse. Honestly she's surprised the entire village has even managed to tolerate his presence as long as they have. Its a downright miracle no one set him adrift tied to the top of a mast to succumb to whatever fate the Gods decide for him afterwards.

When they arrive at the alcove, its empty, and no one is impressed.

"I don't see a Nightfury. Do you guys see a Nightfury?" Tuffnut immediately accuses.

"Well to be fair... this isn't a half bad place to get rid of unwanted people," Ruffnut chimes in, looking over the massive pit with an almost approving kind of appraisal.

"No way," Tuff argues. "This is _way_ too obvious a spot. If it were me, I'd choose that tree over there," he points.

"Guys, I didn't bring you out here to get rid of you," Astrid assures, with what shreds of patience she actually has left. "This is where the Nightfury is living, I promise you. See there?" She directed towards the cave under the tree roots. "That's where its been hiding in the daytime."

Fishlegs squinted, but he was obviously wary to go anywhere near it. "Well... it certainly is dark enough, but between you and me, I'd rather not be the one to lure it out."

"Well at the moment, its not here."

Snotlout threw his hands up. "So there's no Nightfury after all!"

"No, no! It's coming back. I know it is. I saw it yesterday flying around the island, and today I saw it come out of its cave and leave before I came to find you guys."

Fishlegs was looking increasingly disbelieving. "I do believe the _night_ in 'Nightfury' is pretty indicative that they don't come out during the day. That's why no one has ever seen one."

"Well this one does," Astrid promised. Hiccup has to come back eventually, after all. "And it will be back, I know that for a fact. We just have to hide and wait until it returns. What have you got to lose?"

Fishlegs doesn't look as though he believes her, but at the same time, he clearly wanted to be in the loop if there really _was_ a Nightfury living on the island. A discovery like that would just about immortalize him.

"Alright, if you say its for real, then I _definitely_ want to see it!"

Astrid almost grinned. "I thought you'd say that."


	4. Chapter 4

**True Calling  
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction  
**

* * *

Hiccup really needed to clear his head where he couldn't be disturbed.

Stoick didn't believe Astrid had seen him and Toothless, so that gave him a little bit of time to sort out what to do, but not much. Tomorrow was the final day of dragon training, and everyone expected him - _him_ of all people - to kill a dragon in front of the entire village.

He knew better now. He couldn't kill dragons. Not after everything that had happened already. Toothless was the best thing to ever happen to him, just not in the way he had expected, and it was because of Toothless that he was learning there was a lot more to dragons than any of them had ever thought.

What they "knew" about dragons, they _really DIDN'T **know**_.

The problem wasn't that he'd figured this out though or that he was sneaking off every day to see a dragon he had befriended. The problem was in convincing everyone else, chief among them - no pun intended - being his father. It didn't really matter if he could convince everyone else if he couldn't convince Stoick. The Chief's word was basically Law in the village, and Stoick hardly listened to anyone, but he _especially_ didn't listen to Hiccup.

The thought of leaving and never looking back crossed his mind. It would be all too easy on the back of a dragon and he didn't think Toothless would have any complaints about that. He figured his dragon would have even less complaints of he understood exactly what Hiccup would be running from, but for once in his life, his father was acting _proud_ of his son, and he'd be lying to himself if he thought he didn't want to make that work out. He just needed to figure out how to make it work, _without_ killing a dragon in the ring.

Toothless rumbled at him questioningly and Hiccup realized he'd been too lost in his own thoughts to be paying much attention, and they'd been gliding for a while without a clear destination or altering their course much.

Hiccup gave him an appreciative pat. "Sorry bud, just thinking." Pursing his lips, he glanced around for a good place to land where there was no way they could be seen, especially if Astrid was intent on finding them. The top of a tall sea stack looked like a good place and he leaned towards it. Toothless easily caught the motion and banked in the direction Hiccup wanted them to go, climbing up to the top of the sea stack and landing.

For a moment, he just sat in the saddle. They were high enough up that he could easily feel the wind buffeting his hair and kissing his face, the auburn-brunette inhaling deeply and exhaling heavily. Toothless tilted his head back, watching Hiccup out the side of his eye in what Hiccup chose to interpret as concern. When Hiccup finally slid down from Toothless's back and sat down somewhere toward the center of the towering stone, Toothless stretched out and half curled behind him, giving him something to lean back against.

"Sorry bud," Hiccup apologized when Toothless crooned wantingly and glanced at the sky. "We're not going to be doing much flying today."

Toothless snorted disappointment but also curiosity, sensing the small human's tension.

"Tomorrow everyone expects me to fight and _kill_ a dragon to prove that I'm one of them."

Toothless made a low snarl that sounded indignant and disgusted, pupils narrowing into slits and nose wrinkling.

"I can't do that though, but none of them will understand. Especially not my father."

Toothless crooned sympathetically, eyes becoming large and affectionate again as the dragon nosed under his arm in a comforting way. Hiccup wrapped an arm over the top of the dragon's neck and idly scratched his scales.

"Oh, Toothless, if I could just _show_ them how amazing dragons really are and that we don't have to fight you guys. I mean, if I can tame a dragon everyone calls the Child of Lightning and Death, then it shouldn't be hard with other dragons." He paused and rolled his eyes, huffing. "But good luck trying to make a Viking change his mind."

A low, neutral rumble was the only answer he received.

"If I could _just_ convince Dad that we don't have to fight dragons, then I wouldn't have to worry about everyone else, but he's the most stubborn of them all. I mean, h-how do you argue down the Chief of Berk and tell him that how he and everyone else has been doing it all this time is wrong? He's never going to listen to that. He won't even listen to Astrid and she's the best dragon fighter in our generation."

He sighed heavily. He really needed more than one day to figure out what he was going to do.

"If I could just... _show_ him, maybe he'll be open to what I have to say, but only telling him is never going to work." Pondering it a moment longer, he idly shrugged his shoulders and glancing at his dragon. "So maybe I can try and tame the Monstrous Nightmare tomorrow, in front of everyone. That might work, right?"

Toothless rumbled uncertainly. It was far from the reassurance he'd been hoping for.

Hiccup sighed again. "Yeah, that might just end up going horribly wrong." And if something went horribly wrong, there was no chance at all that Stoick would listen to him that dragons were not as big of a threat as they first thought. Worst case scenario, they would find out about Toothless and kill him, and Hiccup was determined not to let that happen, but he also couldn't let himself get killed, because Toothless can't fly without him, and no one else would understand that Toothless is not a threat to even give the dragon a chance.

Astrid already knew about Toothless, even if she couldn't prove it. It was only a matter of time before she could. He didn't think he would manage to get her on his side in such a short amount of time, so he needed to get Stoick on his side first, as if that was going to be any easier.

Coming to a decision, he stood and turned to face the Nightfury.

"We're going to have to get Stoick somewhere alone, and I'm going to show you to him."

Toothless, clearly, did not like the idea, growling a noise of protest. Hiccup held up his hands in placation.

"I know, I know, but what other choice do we have? I can't keep this secret forever, and I can't kill dragons, bud. If they find you before I can change their minds, they'll try to _kill_ you, Toothless, and I won't let that happen. If I can't change their minds, then I'll find a way to keep you safe, at least, so that they'll never be able to hurt you." Kneeling, he held Toothless's head by the underside of his jaw, pressing his forehead against the dragon's. "You're my best friend, bud, and I won't let _anything_ happen to you."

Toothless warbled affection and gratitude, before Hiccup was back on the saddle.

"Alright then, let's get some flying in while I figure out how we're going to do this."

Toothless happily barked agreement and ran to the ledge, dropping down into a dive before finally catching air under his wings.

They spent the better part of their day flying, still trying to get a feel for Toothless's new tail and how to make the most use of it, until the sun was beginning to set and they were both starting to tire. Hiccup's mind was still abuzz with possibilities of how he was going to convince Stoick, but so far he hadn't settled on one or another of his ideas.

They circled the cove, looking for any signs of anyone that might have followed them into it, but he saw no one in the large pit of stone and deemed it safe to land.

Sliding out of the saddle, Hiccup immediately started undoing the latches and belts, neatly hiding them in the far side of the shadow of the cave, where he could barely see anything at all. Toothless stretched out languidly and briefly illuminated the darkness with a low flame as he turned in a tight circle, patting it down and curling up to rest. Hiccup smiled, but he still couldn't quite quell the apprehension in his chest.

"Good night, bud," Hiccup murmured, receiving a low sound in reply that might have been a returned, dragonic _good night_ before he started to trudge towards the exit, stretching skyward and yawning himself. Maybe the walk back would give him just enough time to solidify his plan into something doable.

Or at least, that was the intent, before something jumped him from the brush only a few yards from the alcove and shoved him up against a tree roughly. It hurt, but the mental moan that followed it had less to do with the physical pain and more to do with knowing exactly how much trouble this entailed.


	5. Chapter 5

**True Calling  
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction  
**

* * *

"Ugh, nothings _happening_ ," Ruffnut groaned in boredom, throwing her head back.

"And here I thought hunting a Nightfury was going to be _exciting_ ," Tuffnut agreed.

"I hate to agree with these two idiots," Snotlout agreed, thumbing over his shoulder, "but for once, I do. I'm not even sure there _is_ a Nightfury."

"There is," Astrid insisted, hoping to at least delay them into staying a little longer. Hiccup and that dragon had to be coming back soon. The sun was starting to fall towards night time and Hiccup had to come back by then, right...?

Ruff and Tuff were not placated in the least, standing up and going to leave. Astrid heard Tuffnut muttering something to the effect of _we missed out on today's Yak-tipping for THIS?_ before they disappeared.

"Whelp, I'm officially tired of this," Snotlout announced not long after, standing up. "This was a total waste of time."

Astrid jumped to her feet, moving in his way. "But I have proof that it was here," Astrid countered. He only scoffed.

"A few black scales lying in the dirt doesn't prove a Nightfury was ever here. Maybe they're not even dragon scales." After that, he brushed past her. Fishlegs was the last to get up to leave, but he _did_ get up to leave.

"Fishlegs, you believe me that there was a Nightfury here, right?"

The stout male pursed his lips and shuffled awkwardly. "Well I'm not saying that there _wasn't_ , but even if its true, you said yourself that it flew away. Maybe its not coming back." He wasn't sure if he was being sincere or just trying to spare her feelings, or maybe avoid the brunt of her anger. "Besides, my mother is very strict about my bedtime and if I'm not back I'll get in trouble so I'm going to have to go too. Sorry Astrid."

Soon enough, she was alone. So much for her witnesses. Growling in irritation, she settled down, crossing her arms. Fine, let them leave. She could be patient, though. She knew for a fact that the Nightfury would be back. Hiccup has to go home eventually, which means he has to land.

Its getting dark by the time she hears the sound of wings and sees the black dragon circling above. Its _definitely_ the Nightfury. When it lands, Hiccup slides off its back, safe and sound, and takes off what looks like a saddle, briefly bidding the flying death-beast goodnight before heading for the exit. He's clearly not paying as much attention, so she takes advantage and springs away from the ledge and into the woods, hiding in the shadow of the trees right next to the path.

As soon as she sees him walking by, she pounces, grabbing him by the collar and pinning him to the trunk of a tree. The sharp gasp she hears from him is satisfying, but luckily, this is Hiccup, and Hiccup isn't the type to scream without very good reason, like having a vicious dragon on his heels. She was counting on that to keep him from alerting the dragon. Hiccup _might_ be betraying them by playing with his little pet, but she knows him well enough that he won't sick the Nightfury on her, at least not on purpose.

"You may have gotten the better of me the _first_ time that I talked to Stoick about your little dragon friend, but you're not getting the easy way out this time."

"A-Astrid?" Hiccup yelps softly, before his shoulders slump and she gets the impression he's rolling his eyes. "Oh, well of course its you, who else would it be?"

"Are you mocking me?" She challenged.

"N-no! No... its just..." he quickly takes back. "You're the only one who actually knows anything."

She growled slightly and tightened her grip on his collar. "I'm going to take you to Stoick, and _this_ time, you're going to tell him the truth, or _so help me_ -"

"And you actually think he'll believe that?" Hiccup challenged ironically. "You clearly don't know my father very well."

"You're going to tell him," she hissed. "Or I'll find my _own_ way of convincing him, even if I have to capture or kill your dragon myself, and drag it all the way to the village square!"

That got his attention, she noted smugly.

"Astrid, you _can't_ do that!"

"Can't I?" she returned. "Try me."

"Astrid, they're _not_ what we thought they are."

"And what are they? Because last I checked, they're dragons, no mistake about it, and they're out to _kill_ and _raid_ us."

"Okay, some, maybe... but not Toothless! If you've seen us together then you should already know that. He isn't dangerous. A lot of them aren't."

She scoffed aloud. " _Not_ dangerous? Hiccup, you've _seen_ what they can do! We _all_ have! You almost got torched alive by one the last time they raided our home!"

"Look, I don't know _why_ they're raiding yet, but there has to be a reason. They aren't just mindless killers, Astrid, th-they're... intelligent, and affectionate, and... and..."

Astrid couldn't even believe what she was hearing, tuning out the rest of his rambling to give him a good, long look of disbelief and disgust. "Do you even hear yourself? I mean, what is _wrong_ with you? They've terrorized us for seven generations, killed hundreds, wounded more... how can you even stand there and tell me they aren't what they are?"

"Because I've _seen_ that they have a different side we know almost nothing about. If you just gave me a chance, I could show you it too."

She shook her head, giving him a long glare before snagging him by the collar and all but dragging him towards the village, so he couldn't go running back to his dragon _pet_ and fly off. "I'll get _someone_ to believe me. All I need to do is get a few people to come with me and see it for themselves, and bye-bye secret!"

"A-Astrid please! You don't know what you're doing!"

She rolled her eyes. "No, I think I know _exactly_ what I'm doing."

She heard Hiccup sigh loudly in the darkness as he barely stumbled along. "Oh gods, why does no one ever listen to me...? Astrid, just... stop, alright!" He groped in the darkness and managed to grab a branch, halting her forward progress abruptly. She tried to yank him forward but he clung on to the tree like a bear trap.

"Hiccup! You're coming with me, or things are going to get ugly. You don't want that."

"Then do your worst," Hiccup returned defiantly, enough so that it startled her. He took her momentary pause as an advantage to continue with his train of thought. "Astrid, please, for once in my life, I'm _useful_ to someone! ...even if... yes... that someone is a dragon... and I _know_ that you think its crazy but you know just as well as anyone that I was considered nothing _but_ useless before I had Toothless. Just a scrawny nuisance who couldn't do anything right, and now, for the first time, there's something I'm _good_ at."

She scoffed. "What you're proving you're _good_ at is going behind the back of the entire village, even your own father, and _tricking_ them into believing you're something you're not."

"That I'm not, what? A _hiccup_? A mistake?" Hiccup challenged, once again leaving her pondering how to respond to that. "And how do you expect me to explain that I've been going off every day to see a Nightfury? Yes, you're the better fighter, and always will be, in fact, I can't really fight at all. Both of us know that, and without Toothless, you'd still be the best at handling dragons among our generation. You know who you are, you always have, but I'm not, and maybe I'm hoping that with Toothless... I could find that out. I just... _need_ more time. I don't want to take anything away from you, including how the village sees you as being as great of a fighter as you are, but I don't want to go back to being nothing but a nuisance to be rid of either."

Astrid blew out a long breath, not entirely sure what to make of what he was suggesting. "Hiccup, any moment that you _think_ you know that dragon isn't dangerous, is another moment where it could fly off to our village and try to kill everyone in it."

"Toothless can't do that," Hiccup told her firmly.

"Hiccup, he's a _dragon_ , if he wants to burn down Berk..."

"No, Astrid," he cut her off. "I mean he physically _can't_ do that. Toothless _can't_ fly without me."

She blinked, not quite following what he was saying. "Why can't he fly without you?"

Hiccup sighed heavily. "You remember during the last raid, when I first shot Toothless down? Well, after I found him in the woods, part of his tail was missing. He couldn't even get off the ground anymore." Sheepishly, he drawled, "Soooo... I crafted a false tail out of leather to replace the one fin that was missing. The problem is he can only use it to fly when I'm on his back helping him with controlling the one tail fin."

If she was being completely honest with herself, Astrid was perhaps a little bit impressed, but she didn't know with what part; that Hiccup actually managed to shoot down a Nightfury and rendered it incapable of flying on his own, or that he had actually gone to the effort to give that ability back to it. Stunned, she stood in silence for a while, not sure what to say.

"Why would you even do something like that for it? I mean, if it couldn't fly, you could have always gotten one of the villagers to come with you and kill or at least capture it. I mean, something like that... Hiccup, this is _huge_. You could have been the most reputed Viking in our generation."

"Well, to be entirely honest, that was my original intention," Hiccup admitted. "It would have been so _easy,_ when he was just... lying there, tangled so he couldn't move." He fell silent for a while, bowing his head. "I mean, I had my dagger out, and I was going to kill him, but... I just couldn't." Another pause, then he asked abruptly, "You remember what Gobber said before? He told us that a dragon will _always_ go for the kill, no matter what, but when I cut Toothless free, he didn't. He jumped me as soon as I cut the ropes and had me pinned under his claws. I should have been an easy kill, but he let me go just like how I let him go, without ever putting a scratch on me. When I looked into his eyes, it was almost like he was even telling me, _I COULD kill you, but I won't_."

"You realize that this makes you sound crazy, right?" Astrid pointed out, still disbelieving, but she was listening all the same.

"I know... no one would ever believe it."

Astrid hummed her agreement. The fact that the Nightfury was physically incapable of flying put her mind a _little_ bit more at ease, but only a little. "So what are you going to do now?"

Hiccup blew out a long breath, not seeming to have relaxed at all. "Well... trying to tell my father about this would be a start."

"You said yourself he won't believe any of this."

"I know," Hiccup sighed. "That's why... I'm going to show him Toothless."

"That doesn't sound like a very good plan," Astrid felt the need to point out. "This is Stoick we're talking about. I mean, I tried to tell him to incriminate you and look where that got me, but if you actually _show_ him the dragon, the first thing he's going to see is a threat." Hence why it would have been good material to incriminate him with.

"I... know that also," Hiccup admitted, sounding less than happy. "But if I can get him alone and away from the village, maybe I'll have more of a chance of convincing him without him having the rest of the village help him take down Toothless. Preferably _before_ he expects me to kill a Monstrous Nightmare in front of the entire village, because I... _really_ can't kill a dragon."

"I think we've established that," Astrid mused.

Both of them fell into silence, until Astrid was the one to break it first.

"Well... you've already got a perfect pen for keeping things trapped as long as you want them there," she pointed out, directing towards the alcove. "If you can lure him here, then you at least have _some_ advantage, right?"

Hiccup nodded. "The problem is going to be getting him here... and keeping him from killing Toothless on the spot. If I could have Toothless in the air though... after Dad arrives..."

"I guess its up to me to find an excuse to convince him to come here then," Astrid assumed.

Hiccup was quite surprised. "You mean you're going to help me?"

"Well..." she began. "This can only go one of two ways, and if it doesn't go your way, it will go the way I originally wanted it to, so..."

He rolled his eyes, but he couldn't be sure if she was serious or just trying to save face. "Gee, thanks... Astrid, that makes me feel so much better about it."

Astrid only made an amused sound and turned back towards town, before pausing all of a sudden and glancing over her shoulder. "By the way..."

"Hm?" Hiccup questioned, not sure if this was something he was going to like or not.

"...what was flying like?"

"Oh! Uh... it's... pretty amazing, actually," he told her, grinning uncertainly. "To be honest, if things don't work out... I'm going to miss it... a lot... and I won't be able to show you how indescribable it is either."

She humored him with a light hum to show she'd heard, before continuing on her way.


End file.
